Yum Restaurants to invest $150 mn on expansion

Yum Restaurants, which operates the Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) chains, Tuesday said it will open India's first Taco Bell restaurant in Bangalore by the fiscal-end and expand its existing businesses to reach $1 billion in sales.

"We are going to open our first Taco Bell in Bangalore. The date is, however, linked to the mall in which we are planning to open it. We are ready to open as soon as the mall opens," said Niren Chaudhary, managing director (Indian subcontinent) of Yum Restaurants.

Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum and specialises in Mexican-style food.

"Specifically by 2015, we want to be a $1-billion company, with 1,000 restaurants with 50,000 employees. We will be in more than 60 cities," Chaudhary told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit here.

"The investment will be in the range of $150 million."

At present the company has about 250 stores and 10,000 employees in the country, Chaudhary said.

India's eating-out market is $64 billion and the branded food accounts for less than one percent of that figure.

"There is a massive opportunity for all our brands. We are trying to open as many restaurants as we can," he added.

Asked about the rising commodity prices, Chaudhary said it was not much of a concern at the moment.

"Rising commodity prices, I see that as business as usual, it goes up, goes down."

Sales from KFC has grown by over 20 percent and Pizza Hut has grown in excess of 6 percent over the last year. Pizza Hut operates in about 35 cities and KFC in 12-15 cities in the country.

The company operates close to 150 Pizza Huts and 60-65 KFCs.

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( 302 Words)

2009-11-10-16:30:39 (IANS)

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